Army Trips. World War II.

Between the time that I was inducted into the Army on 17 Apr 1943 and when I was discharged on 8 Jan 1946 the Army took me on many trips. I calculate 16 trips. The shortest was 30 miles and was a ride from Gary and Fourth in Pomona, California to the local Army Reception Center in Arlington. Arlington is now part of the city of Riverside. The longest trip was 5,800 miles from Pearl Harbor to a combat landing on Angaur, in the Palau Islands. On that trip we went out of the way to Guadalcanal to have our last dress rehearsal for our landing on Angaur.

I estimate that the total mileage of the trips was 30,000 miles. I spent five months traveling, four months of the five were on troopships. We crossed the equator and became Shellbacks, I crossed the Pacific four times. It sure is a big ocean. I was six weeks on one of those trips. I was on a 5 mph LST.

The table below lists the trips with some data. The table is followed by a rough sketch of the trip routes. This table will be a help as I write the story of the army part of my life.

Trip	Origin	Destination	Trans. Type	Miles	Purpose	Remarks
1	Pomona	Arlington	Bus	30	Drafted. Get nice haircut	Reception center. Inducted 17 Apr 43 (17 years old)
2	Arlington	Lompoc	Train	200	Basic training	Camp Cooke
3	Lompoc	San Bernardino	Train	200	Desert training	Aborted in 30 days
4	San Bernardino	San Luis Obispo	Truck (overnight at Santa Barbara)(Battle of SB)	300	Amphibious training	At Moro Bay
5	San Luis Obispo	San Diego (Round trip)	Troopship	700	Practice landings	Land at Aliso Canyon, San Clemente, Coronado
6	San Luis Obispo	Marysville	Truck (overnight at Merced)	350	Prepare for overseas (dip gear in cosmoline)	Camp Beale
7	Marysville	Seattle	Train (very scenic ride)	700	Catch ship	Fort Lawton
8	Seattle	Honolulu	Matson Liner SS Maui	2700	Took rugged jungle training	Camp in a pineapple field on hill above Pearl Harbor
9	Honolulu	Palau Islands	Troopship (made last dress rehearsal. land on Guadalcanal)	5800	Combat landing in Palau Islands	Wounded on Bloody Nose Ridge, Peleliu, 27 Sep 44
10	Palau Islands	Guadalcanal	Hospital ship	2200	Heal gun shot wounds	Hospital
11	Guadalcanal	Honolulu	Troopship	3600	Trip to rejoin my outfit	They were not in Hawaii
12	Oahu	Leyte	LST	5300	Or here either	Darn, I miss them
13	Leyte	Okinawa	Troopship	1100	Combat landing	Easter Sunday 45
14	Okinawa	Seoul	LST	800	Occupy Korea
15	Seoul	Tacoma	Troopship	5200	Heading home	Fort Lewis
16	Tacoma	San Pedro	Troopship (stop over night in Portland and San Francisco)	1500	Get discharged, 8 Jan 46	Fort MacArthur